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Top 25 Most Popular Strategy Games in 2019

Pro tip: When enemy chivalry charges you can jump in front of his spear to take less damage.

BY: Musat Stefan

What Are The Most Played Strategy Games?

With thousands of startegy games to choose from, these few make the best.

25. This Is the Police

This is the police Gameplay

You fight crime as a soon to retire old police chief. Manage the station and work together with your crew to catch criminals. There are two shifts of officers that you need to manage, respond to emergency calls and send the people you deem fit to handle the situation. In this game, you can either be corrupt or just, either way, you must carefully make decisions and try to keep yourself clean. Will you be able to have a nice retirement fund? Or will you end up penniless, in jail or even worse, dead?

Give your people a day off from time to time, make sure they deserve it first.

Assign promotion to the ones you consider reliable, a promotion also raises a person’s morale and motivation.

24.Beholder

Beholder Gameplay

You are a landlord in a totalitarian state, hired by the government to spy on your tenants and report any suspicious activity. But you are also a father, and you must provide for your family so, you are given the option of reporting about anyone suspicious or extorting them and earning enough money for your family to live happily. Every choice you make has consequences, everything you do is going to determine the ending you and your family reach.

Complete tasks to earn rewards and expand your building to house more people.

Always make sure that your tenants aren’t doing anything suspicious, they must follow the regulations.

23. Town of Salem

Town of Salem Gameplay

You and a group of random players get together to live in the town of Salem. Each gets a new identity and a random job, you must fulfill your goal in either supporting the others or killing them all. If you are on the town’s side, you must work together with the rest to catch the murderers. If you are given an evil role, you must kill everyone else and be the last one standing.

Spin the wheel to gain a random job, each job gives you some form of ability or advantage.

The suspect is brought to the middle of the town and given a chance to defend himself, after which the others vote to either spare him or execute him.

22. Endless Legend™

Endless Legend Gameplay

In Endless Legend, you must help your city survive in the disaster filled world of Auriga. Manage and expand your city, build your units and customize your troops, strengthen them through technological advancements. Always use everything you have at your advantage, use skills and tactics to overcome strategic battles and use diplomacy to rule the political battlefield. Prepare for harsh environments and tough fights as you explore the beautiful world before you.

When discovering a village, you can choose to either attack them or try to reach an agreement with their leader.

Explore the world and find other tribes, assimilate them through either force or diplomacy and use them to strengthen your kingdom.

21. Men of War: Assault Squad 2

Men of War: Assault Squad 2 Gameplay

Control the battlefield and command your troops in World War II. Keep everything under control and try to keep the casualties low. You can take control of one of your soldiers and fight the enemy yourself. Take on deadly missions by yourself and experience the war that almost destroyed peace forever.

An easy to understand interface with many possibilities.

Be cautious about minefields, you need to have a unit prepared to deal with them.

20. Endless Space 2

Endless Space 2 Gameplay

As the leader of your civilization, you try to build the greatest galactic empire. Manage the people and make decisions for them. Recruit heroes to lead your fleets, create a powerful army capable of taking over the universe. Experience huge exciting battles against strong enemy fleets, command your troops and create the greatest fleet.

Explore galaxies and search for resources.

During ground battles, you can either go into offensive, defend or surrender.

19. FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light

Take command of a ship and start a grand journey to explore the vast unknown universe with your crew. Manage your ship through dangerous encounters with alien ships, repair it and perform maintenance on it regularly. Discover everything the cosmos has to offer and try to live long enough to experience it.

Name and customize your crew and choose the type of ship you wish to drive.

When fighting you must try to maintain your shield, while also having enough energy to power up your guns.

18. Besiege

Besiege Gameplay

In Besiege you create weapons, vehicles, and siege equipment, as you complete the siege missions assigned to you. Take down castles and defeat armies with your very own creations. Put your mind through a tough test as both your creativity and genius need to work together to create the best device for every circumstance.

Detailed building system, build whatever you want, weaponize your creation and kill all the enemies.

You can even build functional helicopters and even planes. You can upload your creation for others to try, or just try the creations of other players.

17. Mount & Blade: Warband

Mount & Blade: Warband Gameplay

Create a character and set out on an adventure to conquer the lands of Calradia. Pledge yourself to one of the factions and help your kings in becoming the rightful ruler of Calradia. Or become a king and rule over your own domain, you might face difficulties as the lords of the land won’t recognize your rule and might try to wage war against the faction you crate. Join the lords of Calradia and create a legend for yourself.

Build your own army by recruiting volunteers. Train them and upgrade their class.

Collect loot from the corpses of your enemies, selling the loot is a great way to gain money fast, or you can upgrade your own equipment if you find anything you like.

16. XCOM® 2

XCOM® 2 Gameplay

You are tasked with rebuilding XCOM and creating a global force to resist the alien invaders and reclaim the earth that belonged to us. Take command of the Avenger, an old supply craft of the aliens now acts as the headquarters of XCOM. Control the squad in missions and create strategies for every situation, use the environment to your advantage and keep the operation going. Recruit new people and fight various types of aliens in the unique missions that you must accomplish.

Always scout the terrain ahead of time and avoid getting flanked.

Your soldiers gain experience every successful mission, they are promoted to the next class in their advancement tree.

15. Crusader Kings II

Crusader Kings II Gameplay

In Crusader Kings II you must take the crown of your own kingdom, enter the world of conquest as you take control of one of the kings in the scenarios presented by the game. Always be prepared to plot against enemies, create discord between adversaries and try to get rid of the people that stay in your way. Strategize the military battles and create favorable situations for your army, try to keep the morale of your troops higher than the enemies by raising the amount of money you spend on army upkeep. Manage the country while also trying to keep the papacy satisfied with your faith, building churches will help you with raising your piety. Rewrite history in this game filled with choices and possibilities, become a king and create a great kingdom that lasts for ages.

Even the greatest of legends die in the end. You must groom an heir and prepare them to continue your legacy.

Keep your vassals happy and satisfied, if they ever show signs of betrayal, you must slowly kill off their influence while also trying to find reasons to imprison them.

14. Banished

Banished Gameplay

In Banished you control a group of exiled travelers that decides to settle down and create a city. Manage and customize the town while also catering to the needs of its people. Keep your people happy and try to expand your city by creating a safe space for the population to grow. Everything is buildable as long as you have the resource to do so, choosing to mine for resources or replant forests takes away from the buildable land that you have. Whether the city succeeds or fails is up to your management skill.

For a successful village, you must give the people jobs. You decide how many people are needed in each field, the more people there are the faster the work.

Make sure that your people never run out of daily necessities.

13. Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon Gameplay

Recruit heroes, train them and lead them inside the dungeon, where horrors, enemies, and despair awaits. Once someone dies, they’re gone forever, value the lives of your heroes as you need them all to face the enemies ahead of you. The biggest foe you’ll encounter is the stress your characters experience during their adventure.

Visit what’s remaining of the city, each building serves a function.

The heroes aren’t perfect, they each have some imperfections, be it sickness or trickery.

12. This War of Mine

This War of Mine Gameplay

As a group of civilians trapped by the war, you must survive, collect supplies from other places to keep yourself alive. Sneak around abandoned buildings to salvage what’s left of the food, medicine and stay out of the radar of soldiers. This game tells the story of a different side of the war, one of the consequences it has on the life of the civilians.

Get sucked in by the stunning imagery and the somber atmosphere.

Clear out the starting area and try to find anything that might come in useful and clear up space for the survivors to move around.

11. Age of Empires II HD

Age of Empires II HD gameplay

Choose one of the 18 civilizations and explore all the world, as you try to build the greatest empire in history. Manage your empire and build up an army to conquer the rest of the world, challenge other players to see which one is the better emperor and dominate the competition through superior tactics and management skills. Train an army and prepare for war, there can only be one winner.

Give the peasants work to do, you can use them to gather resources by cutting wood, mining or quarrying.

Send scouts to search for enemy watchtowers, they are weak in attack power but fast.

10. Europa Universalis IV

Europa Universalis IV Gameplay

Choose the nation you want to rule, and conquer the medieval world. Manage your kingdom and vassals, make sure to put only those that are loyal in positions of power. In this game you are in control of everything, use everything at your advantage, from the loyalty of your vassals to the marriage of your children.

Detailed political map, shows the boundaries of each nation.

There are missions given to the player, completing them gives rewards and unlocks more missions.

9. StarCraft 2

`StarCraft 2 Gameplay

Choose a race and fight against the others for complete dominance throughout the galaxy. Create a base, gather resources, build an army and command them to battle. Manage and defend your base while also raiding the enemy’s base, play against friends or against the AI in campaign mode. Becoming the greatest commander in the galaxy isn’t an easy job, give it your all.

Deploy mechanics to collect resources and build structures.

Use a radio tower to detect any incoming attacks on your base.

8. Company of Heroes 2

Company of Heroes 2 Gameplay

Join World War II and command a division of soldiers to fight against the enemy. Create a camp, capture victory points and create. Play online with friends or against them as you experience one of the best real-time strategy games of all time. Join the campaign and fight against the Germans, each mission depicts a historical event. There are enough ways to play the game and the way you play it is completely up to you.

Capture and defend victory points to win the game, always be prepared for an enemy ambush.

Flank the enemy troops to take them by surprise, you might need to use a few soldiers as bait in this situation.

7. Hearts of Iron IV

Hearts of Iron IV Gameplay

Take control of a nation in World War II and lead your country to victory. Use political or military means to annex more countries as you increase your influence and enter the scene of the Allied Forces and Axis Powers. Use the knowledge you have at your advantage and change history. Command armies on land and fight political battles as you try to either relive history or change it.

Choose between the countries that fought in the war, each faction has advantages and disadvantages.

Do research to advance your technology and become on par with the major powers.

6. Total War: WARHAMMER

Total War: WARHAMMER Gameplay

In Total War: Warhammer you must choose between 5 different races to strive to conquer the land with. Train your army, lead them to fight against giant monsters and flying beasts. You can command your army on the field, recruit giants, and flying creatures. Use the power of magic, monsters, and strategy to rule the world.

Wage war or create alliances whit the tribes around you.

Upgrade your city and build new structures that help you diversify your army or strengthen your economy.

5. Stellaris

Stellaris Gameplay

In Stellaris, you must choose/create a race and dominate the universe with it. Create a galactic empire, expand it and explore the cosmos. The galactic empire is composed of planets, each planet represents a livable environment for your people, expand your empire by exploring more stars and colonizing planets. Advance technologically and create a superior fleet to engage various other races that exist in the universe, prove that yours is the superior race.

You are given the choice of creating your own race, you choose the disadvantages and traits of the race.

Your race reacts differently to the discovery of new species, it all depends on their view towards other species.

4. RimWorld

RimWorld Gameplay

Control a group of colonists that are looking for a habitable planet, build a base and survive in the new environment. Decide everything about the survival of your group, from the skills they are equipped with to the things they eat. Food is essential, you should take up farming or fishing, lest you want to cannibalize on others. Build a base, collect resources, and survive.

Your people need to rest, build beds for them to sleep. Pay attention to the temperature of the base, it should always be bearable for humans.

Building cold rooms will cost you, but it will help you in preserving food.

3. Prison Architect

Prison Architect Gameplay

Build your own prison, manage everything in the lives of your prisoners and try to keep them under control. Make sure everything is connected to the power lines, and all rooms are staffed properly to prevent prison breakouts. Prepare to receive all kinds of prisoners, from death row to light penalties. Make sure that you have all entrances guarded and locked. Build the strictest prison on earth or just have fun managing inmates, either way, you will enjoy this prison management game.

Build a complicated structure to prevent easy breakouts.

To get your prison started you’ll need both a water pump and a generator, spread the cables and pipes throughout the prison to distribute water and electricity.

2. Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines Gameplay

In Cities: Skylines you must create a thriving city and give your people motivation and daily necessities to keep them happy. Manage the cable network, water, and sewage pipes and industrial buildings. Make sure to build enough industrial zones to keep your city well-funded, build schools to make education accessible and create a great living environment with enough stores and parks. Build a great city or just have fun with creative building, just imagine the stuff you can do.

Build your industrial zone away from the residential areas, they are usually loud and cause the people to complain.

Building a school will considerably improve the happiness of the people.

1.Sid Meier's Civilization® V

Sid Meier's Civilization® V Gameplay

Take command of a nation and strive to conquer the world, evolve from stone age to the space age. Lead your nation, advance technologically and explore the world before you. Send people in expeditions towards long forgotten ruins and examine them to find things that might prove useful, meet other nations and conquer them to reach world domination. Manage the strongest country and explore the worlds generated by the game, or the ones created by the players.

Advance the technology in every domain to reach proper balance in all industries.

Explore the world, try to find other cities to expand your nation.

BONUS. Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare

Freeman: Guerrilla Warfare

In a world where all nations are at war with each other, you must try to create your own faction and put an end to the conflict by force. Build an army and fight factions as you strive to become the ruler of all. Conquer the world through force and put an end to the endless war.

Create your character and choose its skills, create a unique build and provide your character with the best equipment you can find.

Create a strategy for each fight, while also leading your troops on land.

Image Gallery

Warband is still relevant dammit!!

Mount&Blade: Warband is a great game played by many people. We all like the diplomatic features of the game as well as the RPG and fighting aspects. Most of you already know this, but there is a new Mount&Blade coming out named Bannerlord. So I expect that Warband is going to be replaced by Bannerlord sooner or later.

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